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Are more senior academics really more research productive than junior academics? Evidence from Australian law schools

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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between academic seniority and research productivity through a study of a sample of academics at Australian law schools. To measure research productivity, we use both publications in top law journals, variously defined, and citation metrics. A feature of the study is that we pay particular attention to addressing the endogeneity of academic rank. To do so, we use a novel identification strategy, proposed by Lewbel (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 30:67–80, 2012), which utilises a heteroscedastic covariance restriction to construct an internal instrumental variable. Our main finding is that once endogeneity of academic rank is addressed, more senior academics at Australian law schools do not publish more articles in top law journals (irrespective of how top law journals are defined) than their less senior colleagues. However, Professors continue to have greater impact than Lecturers when research productivity is measured in terms of total citations and common citation indices, such as the h-index and g-index.

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Notes

  1. These studies are based on the working paper version of Lewbel (2012).

  2. FOR is the Australian Bureau of Statistics Field of Research. In ERA 2010 all journals were classified according to FOR codes. Law is FOR 18.

  3. In a press release on May 30 2011 announcing that the ERA rankings would no longer be employed, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr stated: ‘There is clear and consistent evidence that the [ERA journal] rankings are being deployed inappropriately in some quarters of the sector, in ways that would produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings. One common example was the setting of targets for publications in A and A* journals by institutional research managers. In light of these two factors—that ERA could work perfectly well without the rankings, and that their existence was focussing ill-informed, undesirable behaviour in the management of research—I have made the decision to remove the rankings based on the Australian Research Council’s expert advice”..

  4. For example see Legal Eagle, ‘ERA Journal Rankings are Dead—Hurrah, Hurrah!’ http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2011/05/31/era-journal-rankings-are-dead-hurrah-hurrah, posted May 31, 2011 (last accessed June 27, 2011).

  5. The top journals might be defined with reference (informally) to the ERA 2010 rankings, other lists such as the Australian Business Dean’s Council (ABDC) list. See http://www.abdc.edu.au/3.43.0.0.1.0.htm, last accessed 4 October 2012 for discipline specific rankings.

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  1. Department of Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3800, Australia

    Vinod Mishra & Russell Smyth

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  1. Vinod Mishra
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  2. Russell Smyth
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Correspondence to Vinod Mishra.

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Mishra, V., Smyth, R. Are more senior academics really more research productive than junior academics? Evidence from Australian law schools. Scientometrics 96, 411–425 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0886-3

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